Classical For Everyone

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) is arguably the most beloved composer France has given the world… able to take classical and pre-classical forms, absorb the harmonic colours of Impressionism, draw on the dance traditions of his B...

Recent Discoveries Two T his episode is the second one called ‘recent discoveries’. And that should only be taken in the very personal sense of ‘recent discoveries’ for me. Some of it is indeed recent but in addition to music...

Music for the hour before dawn. Which is in no way intended to be too prescriptive… the episode can be listened to any time… but I hope it is music that has a calmness and perhaps a contemplative tone that suits the hour when...

Time for some music from one of the oldest instruments in the orchestra. True to the Old French word its English name came from… ‘hautbois’ with ‘haut’ meaning both high and loud and ‘bois’ meaning wood… the oboe found its pl...

Music written by people related to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. That may seem an odd way put a show together. If you were to make a playlist of the greatest hits of people related to Taylor Swift, it would be a very sh...

Why a conductor? The outcomes of the complicated relationships conductors have with orchestras and ensembles, with record companies and the public; and with composers living and dead, are in themselves interesting… but for th...